Brazil seizes Musk’s money

A federal judge has withdrawn $3.3 million from bank accounts belonging to X and Starlink to enforce a fine

The Brazilian Supreme Court has unblocked the bank accounts of X and Starlink, only to withdraw $3.3 million from them in order to enforce a fine levied against Elon Musk’s social media platform.

Judge Alexandre de Moraes banned X’s operations in Brazil at the end of August. He also froze Starlink’s assets, calling it part of a “de facto economic group” with X.

“With the full payment of the amount due, [de Moraes] considered that there was no longer any need to keep the bank accounts blocked and ordered the immediate unblocking of the bank accounts/financial assets, motor vehicles and real estate of the aforementioned companies,” the court said in a statement on Friday.

According to the court, a total of 18.35 million Brazilian reals (around $3.3 million) was withdrawn from both accounts, of which 11 million was from Starlink and the rest from X. 

The companies were fined “for not removing content after an order from the [court] in ongoing investigations, in addition to having removed its legal representatives from Brazil,” the court said.

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Musk threatens to go after Brazilian government assets

Musk has not yet commented on the seizure of the funds. Earlier this month, he said the blocking of Starlink’s accounts was “absolutely illegal” since it was a separate company with different shareholders. The tech magnate also threatened to go after Brazilian state assets in retaliation.

“Unless the Brazilian government returns the illegally seized property of X and SpaceX, we will seek reciprocal seizure of government assets too,” Musk wrote at the time. “Hope Lula enjoys flying commercial,” he added, referring to Brazilian President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva.

De Moraes has also threatened a fine of 50,000 Brazilian reals ($8,874) per day against anyone who used a virtual private network (VPN) to access X. There have been no reports of the fine being enforced, however, and multiple prominent Brazilians – including several political parties – have continued posting on the platform.

The dispute between the US entrepreneur and Brazilian authorities began in April, when de Moraes ordered X to delete the accounts of several supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, accusing them of spreading “disinformation” about himself and the court. Musk refused, saying this would violate Brazilian laws.

X’s Global Government Affairs team has said that de Moraes had threatened their Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment and froze all of her bank accounts even after she resigned. The judge then cited lack of counsel as the reason for the fine and the ban on the platform’s operations.

“Unlike other social media and technology platforms, we will not comply in secret with illegal orders,” X said in a statement at the time.